A kerfuffle is brewing. A tiny one.
Ask Siri:
What was the top song in 2012?
If you are subscribed to Apple Music, Siri will fire up Somebody That I Used to Know. If you are not, Siri will defer, telling you you don’t have access to Apple Music.
Now ask Siri:
What’s the top song this week?
This time, Siri will point out a variety of web articles, whether or not you have Apple Music installed.
This issue is getting a lot of coverage. Some of the reaction, perhaps predictably, is quite negative, implying that Apple is intentionally holding back data from non-subscribers.
If the result of the query is a song, Siri is programmed to play it for you. If Siri can’t play the song, she tells you. Not seeing any evil intent here.
I do find it interesting that Siri will go to the web if there is no built-in chart data, but not offer that web solution when she does have the chart data but the user does not have Apple Music. Why not point them to the web and, if you must, make your Apple Music sales pitch along the way? Seems to me, that’d be more useful to the person who asked the question in the first place.
They seem to have “fixed” the second one as it responds the same as first now if you don’t have Apple Music.
This used to work so it’s a bit annoying, but I never actually used it when it did work so meh.
Also if you adjust your request to specifically ask for the “billboard number one song” you get the web pages.
This seems to me more like Siri just needs to get better. I tried it and on my iPad (which I never use to listen to music) it started playing a song from Apple Music. On my iPhone Siri told me it couldn’t understand what I was asking for.
I find Apple’s whole approach to Apple Music is not only “not like Apple” (of the past) but a bit distasteful. I get that they want to promote the Apple Music service, but it seems to be twisting them in ways they never used to bend to before.
I particularly hate that the Music app in iOS is almost useless for those of us that still purchase our music, purchase it in album form, store it locally and sync it to our iOS devices. This particular pattern would make you a prized, core Apple customer just 12 months ago. It’s literally what they’ve been advising people to do and hoping that people would do for the last ten years or so.
Almost overnight, we’ve become second class citizens. The Music app doesn’t even have an Album view anymore. At least not one that actually shows the albums that you’ve synced to your device.
In particular I find the ADVERTISEMENT in iOS that appears when you force-click on the Music icon to be just reprehensible. Again, I get that they want to promote their service, but if users have already opted out, to show them this advert every single time they force-touch the Music icon is just sad.
AFAIK, this is the first advertisement Apple has built right into the home screen of any of their products.
Another giant advert appears every single time you update iTunes. Not to mention that every time you open any “store” app in iOS or OS X, it always goes to the front page, even if you got there by clicking a link to update something.
Ads, ads, ads! This is one of the reasons I left the Microsoft ecosystem in the first place. Apple has definitely changed.
“Siri, search Google for the top song in 2012.”
Also bring up web links instead of just telling you, but probably a decet work around until they put in the “if APPLE_MUSIC_SUB then PLAY SONG else READ SONG TITLE” statement.
Me, if I ask “what was the top song?”, I want to be told the answer, not have something start playing.
“Play the top song …” should start playback, if possible.
I … see an album view in Music?
And it … shows me the music I’ve synch’d to my phone?
I don’t understand your complaint; is it that you also see stuff you could stream/download rather than only what’s local?
(I agree that it’s annoying that the default view appears to be “New”, not “whatever you last used”, in my case thus always “My Music”.
But that’s a minor wart.)